Mended ties Bay Area win record
Mended took a cross-country trip and an unfamiliar configuration in stride Saturday at Gulfstream Park in Florida, winning the $110,000 Claiming Crown Glass Slipper Stakes by 6¾ lengths for a 10th straight win.
Trainer John F. Martin and jockey Ricardo Gonzalez also left their base at Golden Gate Fields to join Mended, whose winning streak tied her with Lost in the Fog (2004-05) for the second-longest by a Bay Area thoroughbred. Hap Logue won 11 in a row in 1973.
Mended was racing for the first time outside of California, and the 1-mile event was around one turn — something that she hadn’t tried since the first of her 26 starts.
“I was a little bit nervous because they run that type of race like a sprint,” Martin said by phone. “She went right to the front, some horse pushed her a little bit (Moonshine Promise) and when Ricky leaned forward it was game over. Halfway around the turn I knew it was over.”
Mended went off the 11-10 favorite in the field of 14 horses that had run for a claiming price of $12,500 or less in 2016-17 and finished in 1:36.42.
The entire winning streak — the longest active one in the nation — has come since Martin claimed Mended for $12,500 from owners Troy and Maritza Onorato out of a fourthplace finish Jan. 6. She has earned $185,900 since the claim.
Six of her wins came on GGF’s synthetic main track and one on its turf course, but her three victories on dirt have been in her highest-class starts.
“She came here and did nothing wrong,” Martin said. “She has a lot of confidence right now. That’s what it does when you run horses in easy races. It builds the confidence and then they start running with better horses.”
The question now is what kind of race Mended will try next. She’s still eligible for starter allowance events at GGF but she might be good enough now to win a stakes in Southern California. “She came out of the race beautifully, it took nothing out of her,” Martin said. “She will stay here for a week and relax until I can get her back home and then I’ll make a plan. Let’s keep it going.” Gold Rush upset: Southern California invaders City Plan, a 24-1 shot, and Ayacara, the 9-10 favorite, rallied in the stretch to finish 1-2 three-quarters of a length apart in the $76,125 Gold Rush Stakes on Saturday at GGF.